Sheep Birth FAIL | What’s Next?

Floppy's having her babies. Early morning, she's laying down, she's got one hoof out. She'll rest, then push, then rest. It's time to milk the cows though. I hate, I hate to delay them. That's the one that's got a bunch in her, right? She was so big. Okay, she's pushing. Uh, I think I saw a little nose. All right, I hate this. We really are gonna have to milk. We are out of Oh, alfalfa or feed didn't come yesterday like it was supposed to. All right, we're gonna try grass. Uh-oh, she didn't like it. We got one cow milking. You got to be uncomfortable. You gonna lay back down? It's still progressing slow, so let's get Phyllis in and milk her. Come on, Phyllis. Just milk Phyllis. It looks like Mama's laying back down. Come on, Mama. You can do it. All right, I've done second milking. We are done. Went okay without the alfalfa, probably better than you can imagine, but definitely a lot easier without alfalfa. She's kind of tucked back in, so we're gonna leave her alone. Really, it's been about an hour. She's laying down. Looks like she might be pushing right now. Are you pushing, honey? I don't see any progress to speak of. I'm gonna set you guys up on a time-lapse right here. I don't, I don't spend too much time out here because I think she's more at peace with me gone. I'm making her a little nervous. So I'm gonna put you on another time-lapse and we'll come check on her in an hour. Henry and I are out here now checking on the baby lamb. What do you think, Henry? You got any action? It's the one back there in the corner and we got no action. Can you hold him for a second, honey?

Yeah.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, that's her right there. Nothing. Maybe she's paused. Okay, look, we're starting to see some progress. I see a lot of goop coming out, and I see— I see hooves again. Okay, we're making some progress. She's laying down and she is pushing. She's in full on. Oh, the head's first. Shoot, that's gonna be hard because I believe the Hoofs are supposed to come first. She is in active labor. Come on, you can do it. Come on, get that baby out. Come on, come on, baby. She got the eyes out. Come on. Oh, the baby's alive. There's the hoofs. Gosh bless your heart. Good girl, good girl. You get that head out, you'll get it out. Okay, she stood up. Head's still sticking out. I can see the lamb breathing, that's good. If it's like cows, we just want to make sure she's progressing. Every 20-ish, 30 minutes, getting further along. Ryder's lamb's nursing meanwhile. Get on the phone with a few buddies and see if that's all right, that it's just the head. The baby's moving. Come on, honey. Randy said I'm gonna have to help because it's gonna get stuck, gonna get stuck on the legs. Uh, so I'm gonna have to try to push the head back in and get the hooves to come first. Or try to help. I don't even know if she'll let me help her. She's not gonna let me help her. You're gonna have to try to catch it, Jonah. You'll have to kind of straddle her head. You can catch her. You want to put her up against the wall? I'm not feeling the legs right here, so that other left leg It's way back up in there. I feel like I'm gonna just have to pull this baby out. I can't reach in there, but she's gonna fall and kind of need somebody to hold her up. The bucket. What bucket? Get that bucket under her. I can't get in there. There's no way. Like, there's a— it's hard, and I— there's no way I'm gonna get my arm around that. Okay, I pulled. I hate I had to help. Hate it. But mama and lamb are all right, because you never know if maybe I didn't have to.

Just pulled it right out. You did? He did. You pulled it out?

Yeah, because there was no way. I tried to reach in, but is it alive? Yeah, it's alive. Becky, I tried to reach in, but it was just too too tight. There was no— it was not like pushing muscle, it was like pushing bone. It was so tight. I hate that we had to do that, because what if we didn't have to? We can ask other people too. Would it have been okay?

Right. Well, I want you to ask Greg Judy.

Yeah, yeah. Would this—

would he just—

yeah, I'll ask Greg. I've cleared its mouth so it can breathe. Okay, she's got another one coming. Uh, we got a lamb giving birth, and well, we've had two lambs give birth just fine. One had twins, one had singles. The third one, only the head was coming out. Okay, that makes me feel a lot better because I'm sitting here thinking, well, could she have been strong enough and figured it out and gotten it out? That makes me feel so much better. I'll explain why here in a second as I explain it to Rebecca. Deep 100% respect for what Greg Judy has done with this flock. Not ba— not, not babying them. No grain, no, no medications, no assistance. 100% respect for that and want to continue the flock strengthening. How's this other one? We want to make sure the hooves stay out.

What's going on with the yellow?

Okay, that is a hoof. Okay, I did get a hold of Greg Judy. She would have died in the pasture. He's got 100, 200 ewes. He can't attend the birth. The reason that makes me feel better is because she wouldn't have pushed through. Yeah, she would have died, and, and all the babies, and all the babies inside of her. So now we get to keep the babies, harvest them for meat, and then harvest her for meat, and nobody's dead. Are you crying?

You make me cry. We have done something better. Like, I read in the book just now, it's like apple cider vinegar will reduce— like, apple cider vinegar in the weeks coming up to birthing will prevent this.

So it's only— the head was out for about 30, 35 minutes, 45 minutes. And he said, yeah, with the head out that long, it wouldn't have come out. And what you want is for your flock, the flock on this farm, to just give birth on their own on our program. Oh, you liked her?

She was the second tamest one we had.

Yeah, she's got another one. So the question is, do we help it?

Yeah, I mean, we're gonna help it. We're helping like this. We're in it.

I know, I don't— I know that we're helping because that's over, but I mean like, no, I would, I would wait to see what happens.

I mean, the hooves are starting to come out. As soon as that lamb can nurse, it will help her push out that second one.

Lamb's getting up. You want to stay here? Yeah, me and you go.

Me and Farmer Henry are gonna stay and enjoy the weather.

I'm gonna heat up lunch. Hooves are still out on that one. We've already intervened. We'll certainly intervene again if we have to. All right, we just finished lunch. Kids have come down and checked on them, and the second one has passed, but, uh, definitely didn't make it.

Really small.

I will get in there and remove it so mom isn't confused anymore and she can minister to the one that is doing well.

Yeah, I think it might have been tangled in this one.

Yeah, something was wrong with this one. Now let's see if this one's a boy or girl.

Hey honey, hey honey.

Hey, you got you a girl. You got you a girl, huh? The bad news is we're gonna have to cull mama. Yes. And, uh, harvest her offspring for meat. The good news is that we saved her. Like, she could have died. She would have had that baby with her. That's meat that we now have. Yeah, they're here, they survived. We'll have meat. We've got one more day, one more birth experience underneath our belt. Yeah, the thing is, Rebecca was saying earlier to me was this is very hard. Yeah, especially when I was down there pulling or making that decision. Do I go in? Do I pull? Do I push the lamb back in? I could kill Mama. I can't kill this lamb baby. That's not going to happen. And then to make a decision to cull is also hard, but that's what you have to do when you get animals. You get livestock, you also inevitably end up with dead stock, and that's because you harvest, or that's because something goes wrong, and it may or may not be your fault.

I mean, who knows why it happens, you know?

Yeah. The good news here is we've got 2 lambs so far, more experience under our belts. What else can we ask for?